University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

The night came, appointed for my marriage
with the beautiful and wealthy Constance
Claiborne. Attended by William Harding,
who, strange to say, in spite of the manifest
and radical differences of character existing
between us, was yet my principal companion,
I was punctual to the hour of appointment.
Every preparation had been made by which
the ceremony should be attractive. A large
company had been assembled. Lights in profusion—rich
dresses—gayly dressed and decorated
apartments, and the most various music,
indicated the spirit of joy and perfect
harmony with which our mutual families contemplated

our union. I have already said,
the bride was beautiful. Words cannot
convey an idea of her beauty. She was
emphatically a thing of light and love—
In grace, one knew not with what, save herself,
to institute a comparison. In expression,
there were volumes of romantic, and interesting
poetry, embodied in each feature of
her face; and the steel of my affections, stern
as it was, wherever she turned, even as the dutiful
needle to the pole, turned intuitively
along with her. Such was the maiden,—so
much after the make and mould of heaven,
whom a cruel destiny was about to link with
one formed in spirit after the fashion of hell.

The ceremony was begun. We stood up
with linked hands at the altar. The priest
went on with his formula. The bride's hand
trembled in mine, and her eyes were commercing
only with the richly carpeted floor. I
was about to answer the question which
should have made us one, when a cold wind
seemed to encircle my body. My bones
were numbed, and a freezing chill went
through my whole system. My tongue refused
its office, and, instinctively, as it were,
bending to the opposite quarter of the apartment,
my eyes fell upon a guest whom none
had invited. There, palpable as when I had
last seen her, stood the form of Emily Andrews.
A pale and melancholy picture, and
full of a terrible reproach. I was dumb, and
for a moment, had eyes only for her. She

was motionless, as when I had borne her to
the unhallowed grave in which she did not
rest. I felt that all eyes were upon me—the
bride's hand was slowly withdrawn from mine,
and that motion restored me. Mine were terrible
energies. I seized her hand with a
strong effort, and with a voice of the sternest
emphasis, my eye firmly fixed upon the obtrusive
phantom, I gave the required affirmative.
With the word, the figure was gone.—
I had conquered. You will tell me, as philosophers
have long since told us, that this was
all the work of imagination—a diseased and
excited fancy, and in this you are probably
right. But what of that? Is it less a matter
of supernatural contrivance, that one's own
spirit should be made to conjure up the spectres
which haunt and harrow it, than that the
dead should actually be made to embody
themselves, as in life, for the same providence?
The warning sound that chatters in my ear
of approaching death may be, in fact, unuttered;
but if my spirit, by an overruling fate, is
calculated for the inception of such a sound,
shall we hold it as less the work of a superior
agency? Is it less an omen for that?

This was not all. At midnight, as I approached
my chamber, the same ghastly
spectre stood at the door as if to guard it
against my entrance. For a moment I paused
and faltered; but thought came to my relief.
I knew that the energies of soul, immortal
and from the highest as they are,
were paramount, and I advanced. I stretched
forth my hand to the key, and all was vacancy
again before me. If my fancies conceived

the ghost, my own energies were adequate
to its control. In this I had achieved a new
conquest, and my pride was proportionately
increased and strengthened. I was thus taught
how much was in my own power, in making
even destiny subservient to my will!